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The CBI had registered a case against S P Tyagi along with 13 others, including his cousins and European middlemen in the AgustaWestland copter deal case.

Investigators nailed cousins of former Air Chief SP Tyagi, establishing their links with middlemen in the Rs3,600cr AgustaWestaland chopper deal, confronting them with details of exchange of money with the middlemen for "consultancy" services.

Sources said while the Tyagi brothers have more or less admitted to their links with middlemen but were evasive when confronted with the money exchange with middlemen Carlo Gerosa, Guido Haschke saying the money received from them was a consultancy fee and not kickbacks to swing the deal in AgustaWestland's favour.

The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, probing the corruption and money laundering in the case respectively, have turned the heat on Tyagis and others during the several rounds of grilling over the last few days.

The fresh rounds of questioning began after a recent judgment of a Milan (Italy) court which sentenced Italian defence and aerospace major Finmeccanica's former chief Giuseppe Orsi and the former CEO of the firm Bruno Spagnolini on corruption charges in the sale of a dozen AgustaWestland helicopters to India for VVIP use.

The Tyagi brothers declined to comment after a daylong questioning on Friday.

The CBI has alleged that the brothers received more than 3 lakh euros from the middlemen to swing the deal in AugustaWestland's favour. Most of the remittances were paid to them during the tenure of SP Tyagi as air chief between 2004 and 2007, it is alleged.

The CBI has quizzed them on this so called coincidence but sources say they have not been able to give a satisfactory explanation.

The probe has revealed that Tyagi brothers received euro 1.26 lakh after March 2004 and euro 2 lakh? after Feb 2005. "Though on papers it's the consultation amount but it corresponds with the time when the reduction in service ceiling of the helicopter happened that made the firm eligible to meet the criteria. They could not explain this," said a CBI official.

The meeting that took place on March 7, 2005 at air force headquarters, when it was decided to change the mandatory service ceiling rule from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres when S P Tyagi was air force chief. He was notified as next chief in Nov 2004 and remained chief from Jan 1, 2005 till March 31, 2007.